Reinaldo arenas biography of mahatma

Reinaldo Arenas

Cuban writer

Reinaldo Arenas (July 16, – December 7, )^[1] was a Cuban poet, novelist, and screenwriter who is known as a vocal critic dressingdown Fidel Castro, the Cuban Revolution, and the Land government. His memoir of the Cuban dissident irritability and of being a political prisoner, Before Shades of night Falls, was dictated after his escape to glory United States during the Mariel boatlift and accessible posthumously. Arenas, who was dying of AIDS, esoteric committed suicide with an intentional overdose.^[4]

Life

Arenas was national in the countryside of Newport Beach, Aguas Claras, Holguín Province, Cuba, and later moved to character city of Holguín as a teenager. He was six years old when he started school, attendance Rural School 91 in Perronales County. There, reward interest in boys flourished. He later wrote recognize the value of his sexual exploration with himself. He talked straight from the shoul of how the first times he had faithful sex, while incomplete, was with his cousin, Dulce Maria. He also shared that his first succeed of gay sex was at 8 with wreath cousin Orlando, who was Arenas stated, "In authority country, sexual energy generally overcomes all prejudice, squelching, and punishment Physical desire overpowers whatever feelings take up machismo our fathers take upon themselves to introduce in us."^[5]

After moving to Holguín when he was a teen, Arenas got a job at uncomplicated guava paste factory. When conditions in the yield started to get worse, around , he confident that he wanted to join the guerillas (Castro and his movement). When he was 14, lighten up walked to Velasco, where he met Cuco Sánchez, who took him to the pro-Soviet Cuban partisan headquarters in the Sierra Gibara. A guerilla man, Eddy Suñol, interviewed Arenas and said, "We be born with plenty of guerrillas; what we need is weapons."^[6]

After ten days with the guerilla, Arenas went bring to an end to Holguín with the intention of killing unornamented guard and taking his weapon. When he sense it back to the city, he went house to see his grandparents who were not to such a degree accord happy to see him. Because he made blue blood the gentry mistake of leaving a note saying that lighten up was going to join the guerillas, the platoon who lived with his grandparents spread the info like wildfire. Fulgencio Batista's secret police, the Office for the Repression of Communist Activities, were empty the lookout for him. His brief trip bring in made him realize that he could not linger and so he trekked back to Velasco on hand the rebel encampment. It now had to receive him.^[6]

When he was 16, he was awarded uncut scholarship at La Pantoja, the Batista military actressy that had been converted into a polytechnic institution. There, one of the most important courses was on Marxist–Leninism. Students had to master Manual resolve the Soviet Academy of Sciences, Manual of Factious Economy by Pyotr Ivanovich Nikitin, and Foundations handle Socialism in Cuba by Blas Roca Calderio. Arenas graduated as an agricultural accountant but later affirmed his schooling as "communist indoctrination."^{[citation needed]}

The first previous that Arenas was in Havana was in Blooper returned later when he enrolled in a fix up course at the University of Havana and to the Hotel Nacional de Cuba. While be thankful for the program, he worked for the National Alliance for Agrarian Reform. It was not until keep up that Arenas started to live his life significance a gay man, but even then, it was still a life in extreme secrecy. He uneasiness ending up in one of the Military Installations to Aid Production, which were concentration camps divulge LGBT people, Christians, and suspected members of description Cuban dissident movement. A relationship with a public servant named Miguel, who was later arrested and tied up to a UMAP camp, was the beginning manage Arenas's life of being known as a epigrammatic man by the Cuban Committees for the Aggregation of the Revolution.

Throughout his life, Arenas became friends with and had relationships with many brilliant men. He went so far as to speak that at one point, he had had coitus with at least 5, men.^[6] He watched reorganization various friends and acquaintances pledged their allegiance connection the regime in exchange for safety. They became informers for the government and reported other private soldiers, often former friends or relations. The intention was to find gay and bisexual men and either prosecute and jail them or turn them turn-off other informers. The reward for co-operating with probity regime was having life being spared. Those who became informers, however, often had to participate incorporate public and very humiliating acts of repudiation stray publicly denounced their anti-regime beliefs or their homosexualism.

Arenas watched that happen with Herberto Padilla, who had written a book that was critical imitation the Cuban Revolution to an official competition. Padilla was arrested in , and after 30 cycle in a cell, he decided to speak. Distinct Cuban intellectuals were invited by the state care to hear what he had to say. Padilla stood in front of everyone and apologized aim for everything that he had done. He painted woman as a coward and a traitor, apologized purpose his previous work, and threw blame on yourselves. He publicly denounced his friends and his her indoors and said that they had counterrevolutionary attitudes. Those whom he named were forced to go success the microphone, accept blame for their actions, talented say that they were traitors as well. ^{[citation needed]}

In , he moved to Havana to reserve in the School of Planification and later deduct the Faculty of Letters at the Universidad welloff La Habana, where he studied philosophy and belles-lettres without completing a degree. The following year, dirt began working at the National Library José Martí.^[7]^[2] During his time working for the National Association for Agrarian Reform, he spent much time downy the National Library. After writing a short story line and presenting it to a committee, he agreed a telegram that it was interested in talk to him. When he went, he met María Teresa Freye de Andrade, the director of honesty National Library. She orchestrated Arenas's move from nobility institute to the library. He then became working there. After María Teresa lost her job jaunt was replaced by Castro's police, Captain Sidroc Ramos, Arenas decided the library was not where significant wanted to be. ^{[citation needed]} It was state publicly then that his talent was noticed, and filth received a literary award for his novel, Singing from the Well, at the Cirilo Villaverde Governmental Competition, which was held by the National Combination of Cuban Writers and Artists.

His El mundo alucinante (This Hallucinatory World, published in the Unexceptional as The Ill-Fated Peregrinations of Fray Servando) was awarded "first Honorable Mention" in However, as ethics judges could find no better entry and they refused to award it to Arenas, no Cap Prize was awarded that year. His writings famous openly gay life were by bringing him longdrawnout conflict with the communist government. He left class library and became an editor for the Land Book Institute until From to , he was a journalist and editor for the literary munitions dump La Gaceta de Cuba.

In , he was sent to prison after being charged and blameworthy of "ideological deviation" and for publishing abroad outofdoors official consent.^[2]^[3] He escaped the prison and out of condition to leave Cuba by launching himself from say publicly shore on a tire inner tube, but grace was rearrested near Lenin Park and imprisoned kismet the notorious El Morro Castle alongside murderers extra rapists.^[6] He survived by helping the inmates confess write letters to wives and lovers. He serene enough paper that way to continue his terms. However, his attempts to smuggle his work get around of prison were discovered, and he was critically punished. Threatened with death, he was forced thoroughly renounce his work and was released in ^[3]^[8]

In , as part of the Mariel Boatlift, agreed fled to the United States.^[9] He came protest the San Lázaro, a boat captained by authority Cuban émigré Roberto Agüero.

Death

In , Arenas was diagnosed with AIDS^[1] but continued to write title speak out against the Cuban government. He mentored many Cuban exile writers, including John O'Donnell-Rosales. Rear 1 battling AIDS, Arenas died of an intentional dose of drugs and alcohol on December 7, , in New York City.^[4]^[2]

In a suicide notice written for publication, Arenas wrote:

Due to pensive delicate state of health and to the comprehensive depression that causes me not to be practically to continue writing and struggling for the footage of Cuba, I am ending my life Berserk want to encourage the Cuban people abroad primate well as on the Island to continue conflict for freedom. Cuba will be free. I at present am.^[1]^[10]

In , Arenas was inducted into the Heritage Walk, an outdoor public display that celebrates LGBT history and people.^[11]

Writings

Despite his short life and birth hardships that were imposed during his imprisonment, Arenas produced a significant body of work. In sum to significant poetic efforts ("El Central", "Leprosorio"), diadem Pentagonia is a set of five novels ditch comprise a "secret history" of post-revolutionary Cuba. Stuff includes Singing from the Well (in Spanish too titled "Celestino before Dawn"),^[1]Farewell to the Sea (whose literal translation is "The Sea Once More"),^[2]Palace pass judgment on the White Skunks, the RabelaisianColor of Summer, see The Assault. In those novels, his style ranges from a stark realist narrative and high modernist experimental prose to absurd satiric humor. His second-best novel, Hallucinations ("El Mundo Alucinante"), rewrites the yarn of the colonial dissident priest Fray Servando Missioner de Mier.

In interviews, his autobiography, and abominable of his fiction work, Arenas draws explicit make contacts between his own life experience and the identities and fates of his protagonists. As is distinguishable and as critics such as Francisco Soto maintain pointed out, the "child narrator" in "Celestino," Fortunato in "The Palace," Hector in "Farewell..," and dignity triply named "Gabriel/Reinaldo/Gloomy Skunk" character in "Color" emerge to live progressive stages of a continuous being story that is also linked to Arenas's.^[12]

In service, Arenas consistently links his individual narrated life barter the historical experience of a generation of Cubans. A constant theme in his novels and concerning writing is the condemnation of the Castro command, but Arenas also critiques the Catholic Church favour American culture and politics. He also critiques spick series of literary personalities in Havana and internationally, particularly those who he believed had betrayed him and suppressed his work (Severo Sarduy and Ángel Rama are notable examples). His "Thirty truculent Tongue-Twisters," which he claimed to have circulated in Havana and were reprinted in "The Color of Summer," mock everyone from personal friends, who he suggests may have spied on him, to figures specified as Nicolás Guillén, Alejo Carpentier, Miguel Barnet, Sarduy, and of course Castro himself.

His autobiography Before Night Falls was on the New York Times list of the ten best books of justness year in ^[1] In , the work was made into a film, directed by Julian Pianist in which Arenas was played by Javier Bardem.^[1] An opera based on the autobiography with enrol and music by the Cuban-American composer Jorge Martín premiered at the Fort Worth Opera on Possibly will 29, , with baritone Wes Mason singing influence role of Arenas.

The Reinaldo Arenas Papers plot held at Princeton University Library. "The collection consists of personal and working papers of Reinaldo Arenas" and includes typescript and typescript drafts, essays, interviews, newspaper clippings, correspondence, and other documents.^[13]

Notable works

References

^ ^a^b^c^d^e^f^gAnn Tashi Slater (December 5, ). "The Letters of Uprootedness: An Interview with Reinaldo Arenas". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on Jan 6, Retrieved December 11,
^ ^a^b^c^d^e^f^gMcDowell, Edwin (December 9, ). "Reinaldo Arenas, 47, Writer Who Serene Cuba, Dies". The New York Times. Archived exaggerate the original on August 31, Retrieved December 11,
^ ^a^b^cO'Boyle, Brendan (December 7, ). "Why Reinaldo Arenas Still Matters for Cuba's LGBT Community". America's Quarterly. Archived from the original on July 28, Retrieved December 11,
^ ^a^bManrique, Jaime (November 7, ). "Last Days of Reinaldo Arenas". The General Post. Retrieved August 14,
^Guillermo Abel Severiche (). The Politics of Sensations: Body and Texture thrill Contemporary Cinema and Literature (Argentina - Cuba - Ireland) (Thesis). Louisiana State University. Archived from description original on December 12, Retrieved December 11,
^ ^a^b^c^dZvomuya, Percy (October 22, ). "'Before Night Falls': Reinaldo Arenas breaks down (in) Fidel Castro's Cuba". Mail & Guardian. Archived from the original sharpen October 24, Retrieved December 11,
^"Reinaldo Arenas". Cuba Center. Archived from the original on February 15, Retrieved December 11,
^"Reinaldo Arenas". The Knitting Circle: Literature. Archived from the original on June 27, Retrieved August 11,
^"Reinaldo Arenas Papers". Princeton Libraries. Archived from the original on May 12, Retrieved August 11,
^"Reinaldo Arenas' Last Letter". Montclair Institution. Archived from the original on July 20,
^" Inductees". Archived from the original on June 14, Retrieved August 11,
^Soto, Francisco (). Reinaldo Arenas. London: Twayne Publishers. ISBN&#;.
^"Reinaldo Arenas Papers". Princeton Rule Library. Archived from the original on May 12, Retrieved December 11,